so you found someone. found her when you were still waking up in the middle of the night kissing my face, actually. would you run back to your dreams and meet her there? would your lips still taste of me? and those circles you’d trace on my arms, my legs — was it my skin you were touching? and when my hair found refuge between your fingers, what were you thinking of? who?

was it misplaced affection? did you know i mistook it for medicine? did you not know too much processed love can ruin a person?

do you give it to her in all of its purity? is your dirty saved only for women like me?

do you make love to her? do you fuck her? do you put on that same playlist? i wouldn’t take her for being one to get down to Deftones or Type O. your girl doesn’t know a thing about metal. but i bet she pretends; takes up all of your likes and interests. is she malleable?

do you like how much younger she is? does she agree with you always? swallow all your bullshit like pudding? the stench — can she even smell it?

is she soft? do you like that she doesn’t flinch in her sleep? that life has left no part of her florid and bruised? she doesn’t know anything. congratulations, your girl is blemish-free.

your girl is sweet. someone you can introduce to your friends. to your family. sweet in her prim dress when you take her home to mommy and daddy. sweet when you’re teaching her all the things you didn’t have to teach me. sweet when she doesn’t know you’re doing it all wrong. sweet when she’s acting wifey. sweet that she doesn’t know what you’re up to on trips. sweet when you’re trying to assuage your guilt. sweet that she doesn’t know how to sting.

does she have to keep from biting her lip at the sight of you?

does she dig her fingers into that hairy mole on your back when you’re about to cum? does she love the ugliest parts of you? i felt them before i knew.

she’ll make a lovely wife. a simple life. that’s good. i would have let myself been wasted by reckless love. if you had let me, i would have scraped my knees bloody to worship you. i would have made an idol out of you with my poetry.

will you leave her like you left me, reeling and bitter, cursing all the things she mistook for promises? wailing the way only a forgotten snowflake melted in your hands could? will you go chasing after other butterflies in the garden or will you finally settle domestic and curl at her feet?

no matter.

my spirit will be dancing wildly with the wild roses. fuck you for seeing my thorns as anything but gorgeous. i was the most beautiful flower. the darkest shade of crimson. velvet to the touch. your hands — they did not deserve me. your eyes unworthy of every stringy yarn of flesh i unraveled before you.

i know i once said you were good for me and i know i said i loved you, but darling, you know i’ve always been sick.

understand this: i never needed to be fixed. this darkness. these things. this is not weak. to still be here with all the things that live inside of me. to still love after everything that’s been done to me.

when you’re lying in that bed and you hear it — those aren’t wasps humming in the rafters, it’s understanding the world burst like music out of me. it’s lying next to an angel and missing the demon that glows in the night. it’s not insomnia. those are your eyes like broken headlights staring at a ceiling smeared pale with regret.